On April 17, 1989, students gathered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in mourning for the Communist party member Hu Yaobang. Hu had been a reformer, advocating for a free market and more transparent government. The movement began as mourning, then turned into a protest for democracy. It continued to gain momentum until May 20. Worried about how to get rid of the protesters, the government declared martial law on May 20, 1989.
However, the protesters simply surrounded the military and tried to convince them to join the protesters. They even gave the soldiers food and water in a show of nonviolence. In the iconic video of Tiananmen's "Tank Man," the soldiers can't seem to hurt their own people. Tank Man, after blocking the leading tank's path, tries to talk to the tank driver.
Recognizing that these soldiers were not going to fire upon people just like them, the Communist government withdrew them. This seemed like a victory for the protesters, but the government simply re-thought how it would use military force.
Finally, on the evening of June 3rd, more troops were sent into Beijing. Unlike the previous troops, these soldiers were from rural parts of China, far removed from Beijing. The troops had also been told that the protesters were simply criminals who needed to be cleared from the square. And the dreams of democracy in China slipped away as the forces opened fire on protesters.
Now known as the June 4th massacre, a recently revealed reports logs the "minimum estimate" of deaths at 10,000 protesters. The government claimed that troops were acting in self-defense, but with a toll of 7 soldiers dead, this is blatantly unbelievable.
After the huge protests that had occurred, the Communist Party strengthened its grip on China's politics to make sure that this would not happen again. It's such a shame that China came so close to democracy, and yet, it is still a Communist country today.
Sources:
https://www.axios.com/declassified-cable-estimates-10000-killed-at-tiananmen-square-1515110832-471be650-3234-4535-b423-cbaa36329316.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989#Gathering_momentum
http://www.legacy.com/news/explore-history/article/hu-yaobang-and-tiananmen-square
Anya, I really liked your post about Tiananmen Square and the video of "Tank Man." I was curious about how the Communist Party became more powerful and your last comment about how that allowed them to stay communist today. Using the sources https://chinachange.org/2015/06/02/how-the-tiananmen-massacre-changed-china-and-the-world/ and https://www.theepochtimes.com/is-china-still-communist_2208716.html I learned that China is still communist because the government controls all the land and the commanding heights of the economy, however it still has many capitalist elements. One source talked about how China has benefited from globalization and has instituted capitalist policies, yet they still exploit the poor workers. China was making economic progress before Tiananmen, but afterwards they assumed total power and made it impossible for the people to protest for better working rights. I was also curious about "Tank Man" but I found that his identity was never verified and there are many rumors as to what happened to him.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Anya, it's interesting how unlike the Soviet Union, China's communist government stayed in power and still existed by the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Union fell because of its inability to adapt its economic structure, but China, while still suppressing political reform, introduced economic reforms. These monetary reforms boosted China's economy, increasing the public's happiness and providing the communist government more stability and less opposition.
ReplyDeleteSource:
http://www.e-ir.info/2010/11/17/why-did-communism-survive-in-china-but-not-in-the-ussr/
Anya, I really liked your post. I felt that it addressed the event as well as its ramifications really well. Being Chinese, it's interesting to read about these protests and the backlash of the government. The reason for this is because I actually did not know about the Tiananmen Square riots until about a year ago, when I learned about it in school. It strikes me now because my mother was in Beijing at the time of the riots and she was a student, and yet she never mentioned the events. It was a watershed event for several issues in China today, yet I was never told anything about. This could be due to several reasons, one of them being the strict repression of discussion of the event within China even today, or a simpler reason. Whatever it may be, I still find it interesting that I had to learn about a momentous occasion in Chinese history at school here in America.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tiananmen-square-massacre-takes-place